Thursday, March 22, 2012

Internazi

The Internet is becoming the town square for the global
village of tomorrow. (Bill Gates, 2003)

If I had not taken socio 10 this semester, I would never
have known that whatever I upload or post in the internet will be recorded and
kept in a so-called database.

Frightened about the fact that all the information I share
through the internet, I now limit and try to screen all the data I am about to
post. This idea has taught me to carefully select the content I would contribute
to the immense technological world that can be easily visited by different
kinds of people from all over the world. Doing so gives me peace and somehow
makes me feel safe to a certain extent.

Also, knowing that the global broad-based militant Islamist
organization named Al-Qaeda sparked up through the use of the world-wide-web
made my fear of the extreme effects the internet could have on the society a
lot more serious. These terrorist movements benefit so much from the internet.
The advantages of the internet have not gone unnoticed by the terrorist
organization and no matter what their race or political orientation are, all of
them seemed to find the Internet alluring.

Internet has become a very powerful tool in bringing
together the different worlds of the different users of the said concept. The
success of the actions Al-Qaeda has made or rather the innovation of the
methods modern terrorism use with their attacks attest to everyone that the
Internet, definitely, is capable of making what once was impossible to do,
possible.

Relating this to my situation, the flaws of the most recent
USC campaigning and elections were scrutinized and publicized by our sociology
class through the internet. The action driven by pure volunteerism started when
the classroom campaigns began to matter. Several problems were noticed like the
bad compliance with some of the policies regarding campaigning, having black
propagandas, excessive production of campaign materials, too much branding, irrelevant
information on posters and other
problematic situations that are present throughout the campaign period of the
USC elections. Our class posted our sentiments on the world-wide-web and aimed
to collect as much signatures as possible for the newly elected psychopaths
would only pay attention to our action if the petition gained the appropriate
amount of signatures.

Surprised to see the results, within the span of about two
to three days, the petition has gotten 700 and more signatures! That is only
proving to us that the internet is really a breakthrough in our century.

Although there really are drawbacks associated with the
Internet, it is still undeniable that it affects our society greatly. People nowadays
would not be able to live in a world without internet. Just thinking about how
much of a convenience it has been in our lives just makes the Internet a huge
part of the society. Just like the basic concept in sociology wherein the
society determines and affects the self just as much as the self affects the
society, internet pretty much does the same. People created the internet and so
in turn, the internet now can make a huge change to a person.

I can only hope that the benefits can overcome the downsides
the Internet can bring.